Sunday, February 13, 2011

The last of our swing through the North this weekend comes courtesy of our friends up in Norway, who, as usual, pulled out all the stops for the Finale of their Melodi Grand Prix. There were eight songs in this final round of competition, with two from each of the three semifinal heats and two songs from the Siste Sjansen (Last Chance) round. From those eight performances, four would be selected to move on to a so-called "Golden Final", where jury and audience votes would determine the ultimate winner.

Making it to the Golden Final, ironically, were both of the two songs from the Siste Sjansen round, along with the two qualifiers from the third semifinal. And the final tally, after all of the votes had been counted...

Despite her young age, this Kenyan-Norwegian performer has had experience and chart success performing all over Scandinavia and Africa. In fact, only one day after "Haba Haba" took the MGP victory, it knocked Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" off of the top spot on the Norwegian iTunes chart. Stella's high-energy performance and easy-to-remember hook made this song a no-brainer for the victory. If she can keep this momentum up, she might end up as a front-runner for this year's ESC title...

And, as a point of trivia, "Haba Haba" will be the first time that Swahili will be heard on the Eurovision stage! "Haba haba hujaza kibaba" is a proverb meaning "little by little fills up the measure". According to Wikipedia, this will be the 53rd language heard at the ESC (52nd if you don't count imaginary languages). Needless to say, this makes the linguistics nerd in me very happy...